One of the biggest stresses on my engagement wasn’t really the normal stuff–the wedding planning or whatnot. It was a phrase I’d rerun over in my head a hundred times: I don’t feel called overseas. Evangelism is not my gift. My husband-to-be surpassed the one I’d been looking for so many times over. And it really did seem God was leading us to marriage.
But was he?
Was I…selling out? I’d been headed in an overseas direction for years. What was I missing?
Going overseas independently has its benefits–like autonomy, neutrality from agencies’ agendas, and flexibility. What do you need to know if you’re thinking in this direction? Don’t miss these important thoughts. I chose to go the independent route because I felt that I already had (or was able to find) all of the services of a missions agency from other sources at a fraction of the cost. But there are several advantages for being associated with a missions agency, including the following:
Reading Time: 3 minutes
By Denise Rhoades
Arriving in your host country, you’re eager to get started. But it’s been six months, and language learning has been killer. Your new language has three different n sounds made with varying positions of your tongue.
It’s exactly what happened to me as I relocated to West Africa. I recognized that a deep sharing of Jesus as their sin-taker and life-giving Savior with my new Muslim friends was going to be more like a marathon than a sprint.
Reading Time: 3 minutes
When I was 23, an editor position opened up at the publishing house where I was working. In the vein of having integrity, I approached my boss with my interest in the position.
“You don’t have the chops for that job,” he told me point-blank.
His blithe directness, to be frank, chapped my hide. But looking back now, there’s no doubt in my mind he was right. I’m not sure if I have the chops for that particular job now. Yet it did make me take a look at the job itself and gradually appreciate just how off my self-assessment was–as well as my understanding of the job itself. And honestly, I buckled down to eventually be the kind of person who could qualify for a job like that.
Reading Time: 2 minutes
The William Carey Library has compiled this free daily prayer guide for the largest unreached people groups in the world. Download it here–and consider this free printable infographic for unreached people groups while you’re at it!
Craig Thompson challenges “If it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing well”, “If it’s important to you, then it’s important to God” and other phrases he’s put in perspective in his time on the field. Great words here.
Reading Time: 4 minutes
Years ago my husband had a friend who was contemplating starting his own non-profit (oh. And he had a family with six kids. So there was that.)
Our friend decided to take forty days to fast and pray, in search of what he should do.
At the end of all this fasting and praying, my husband wanted to know: Did God show you what to do?
Reading Time: 5 minutes
I’ve written before that my husband’s and my decision to shuffle our family of six overseas wasn’t perhaps as clear as we would have liked. But when I finally arrived overseas, y’know the funny thing? Everyone’s story and path on how they got overseas was completely different.
None of us had heard an audible voice, to my knowledge. That would have been nice, considering all the times you wonder what in the world you’ve gotten yourself into; all the times you’re second-guessing because the work and the results didn’t look how you thought. Did I hear you right?
